Subj : Accomplishments, math (was: How much should I charge for fixed-...)
To   : comp.programming,comp.lang.java.programmer,comp.lang.lisp
From : rem642b
Date : Wed Aug 24 2005 09:32 pm

> You don't have any "good stuff"!

Please look in
  http://members.tripod.com/~MaasInfo/SeekJob/ResApp.00C-Acc.txt
and tell me briefly why each accomplishment is not good.

> I must have missed the part in your resume which outlined your
> commercial experience in writing educational software. All I saw was
> work at Santa Cruz and Stanford

I have no idea where you came up with Santa Cruz here.
My work at Stanford was developing innonative new software which was
then tested in several low-income high schools in East San Jose to
evaluate it for more general distribution. I don't know whether the
schools had to pay or got it for free, but I'd guess the latter.

> Finding programmers with really good solid backgrounds in maths is
> actually qite difficult

Anyone unable to find an unemployed math whiz must be pretty stupid.
If anyone really wanted math whizzes, I would never have been
unemployed. John McCarthy was the only person who ever offered me a job
on the basis of my math awards, and after six months of my working for
free to impress him he hired me for only a two-month temporary job, not
anything longterm or even medium-term, so it almost counts for nothing,
i.e. my math was *never* a positive factor in getting any real job.

> I know of quite a lot of companies who have had a very difficult time
> finding good programmers which are also talented at maths.

If you know of any with offices/branches in this part of California,
please tell me the company names, and if possible names of people in
each such company who might like to hear I'm available.

> I'm now skeptical about your ability to program.

Given the very large number of applications and utilities I've written
in the past, and my continued software development (when I'm not
spending all my time responding to newsgroup messages instead), what
makes you be skeptical in that way? Do you need me to write some
software for you to prove I can still do it even now? What evidence
would it take to convince you that even though I'm currently not
employed I still can and do program?

> I beleive [sic] the language is, in the main, irrelevant.

I half agree with you. See below.

> What is more important is your understanding of the underlying
> concepts (data structurers, algorithms, analytical skill and the
> ability to apply these skills). etc).

I fully agree.

> The language is just syntax and less important.

Now here is where you show your gross ignorance of the variety of
programming languages available. Some such as C are almost nothing
more than assembly language with a user-friendly syntax. Indeed they
don't provide any major facilities different from assembly language.
The only big difference is syntax.

But when you compare Lisp or Java, you see a much richer runtime
environment, which is partly reflected in the syntax, but really it's
the runtime environment that makes the difference. What is a royal pain
to program in C is trivial in Lisp and very easy in Java.

When programming in C, you're spending your time re-inventing the wheel
over and over instead of just getting on with implementing the data
structures you need and writing the algorithms to use those data
structures effectively.

For example, here's a single expression in Lisp which filters a linked
list, building a new linked-list with the successful matches:
    (remove-if-not
      #'(lambda (iprec) (iprec+lostr+histr-match-or-bigger iprec lostr histr))
      g*ip-ranges)
Even with templates and ctors/dtors in C++ this would be a bit of work
to write, and in C it'd be a major hassle just to write the code to do
that, and you'd still have to write code elsewhere to keep track of
references or otherwise arrange when to deallocate the original and/or
filtered-copy at just the right time to avoid memory leak, whereas in
Lisp it's trivial.

> Your strengths are (possibly) in your rigor and ability to abstract a
> problem down to its fundamental parts (coming from a maths background),
> possibly your life experiences, possibly skills you developed in what
> little work you have had etc.

So how do I put such skills in my keywords list so my resume won't be
tossed in the trash can before anyone can actually read it to discover
the subtle things that I'm really good at that you cite there?

And you're grossly wrong about where I developed skills! I have 22+
years programming experience, about half paid and half unpaid, and I
develop just as much skill in the unpaid work as in the paid work, it's
just that they are different kinds of skills, which complement each
other nicely to where I have a more well-rounded understanding of
software than somebody who worked for somebody else all their lives
making money but never had any free time to work on more interesting
projects that go outside the commercial straightjacket/box.

But again, if my resume is going to be tossed in the trash unless the
junior staff member sees just the right keywords, then what keywords do
I need to include? Please tell me what to add to the keywords/phrases I
listed in the first part of this two-part reply.

Any of these I just now realized I forgot to include in the earlier
list because they weren't in any of my previous resumes from which I
was gleaning the keywords?

abstract problem
agile programming/development
inline documentation
read-eval-print debugging
rigor
tdd
test-driven development
unit testing

.